Oh So Dark
by Naquiel
Summary: Witchblade, Ranma and Darkness crossover


Oh So Dark Prologue  
Ranma 1/2, Darkness and Witchblade crossover  
by Naquiel  
  
Disclaimer - Ranma, Darkness and Witchblade don't belong to me so please don't sue.   
  
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Chapter 0  
  
Ranma was originally a kind and mostly gentle soul, fragile in a way, indestructible in others. His training trip robbed him of his childhood and replaced it with darkness, pain, struggle, inhuman effort and agony. He started out as a young, innocent, impressionable soul, and turned into a dark-hearted man-child, enshrouded in an apparent innocence and kindness that he had long lost. But, before his father's influence corrupted his soul enough for him to go too far into his personal darkness, the Nekoken technique came to his moronic father's attention.  
  
The rain poured down in sheets, gifts from a darkly overcast sky. Droplets glistened; becoming mists of jewels whenever they splashed on the grass, or boughs of trees, or even, the huddled, ill-prepared tent of one Genma Saotome.  
The large, fat man, shivered and sneezed, listening to the rain. He was wrapped up in a cosy blanket, secure from the most of the cold and wet. He reached into a packet of crisps and ate them greedily, his gluttony a force to be reckoned with! He deftly opened a can of sake and drank from it. He was, for the time, content.  
Outside, it was a different story. A small child, with raven dark hair and deep blue eyes, shivered with every cold touch of rain and invading caress of the rain. His shaking form was under a small tree, nearby to the squatting tent. He had his knees up to his chin, his arms wrapped around his shins. All he wore was a badly fitting, and tattered gi, the once white material, dark with rainwater and soiled. His little form shook uncontrollably, his skin numb from the cold. He had his eyes closed, trying to shut off sensation. His hair was plastered to his face and neck with the rain. His small mouth was already blue with cold, and his cheeks were flushed with hazy red.  
Ranma was frightened, honestly frightened. He could not even use his tenuous grasp on his Chi. His small form was shaking violently. He had probably already caught pneumonia. He did not want to die. With whatever strength and will he had left, he stood, up, his arms wrapped tightly around himself. He did not even give a final look towards the pale yellow tent, and ignored the sounds of food being devoured.  
He walked towards the more heavily forested area of the woods that he and his father were camped in, hoping for shelter from the vicious cold and water.  
His numb feet walked only by memory, stumbling towards the earthen path that cut deeply into the forest. His bare feet began to bleed as he encountered the first of the rocks and nettles. He continued on, numb to his own pain, and to anything other than his vague goal of safety from cold and rain, accumulating wounds as he went.  
  
For minutes or hours he wandered through the forest, lost and uncaring, looping and encircling. He was numb and felt only the desire not to stand still, to defy the cold and it's touch, to try to live. Eventually, however, his child's body gave out.  
He fell onto a bed of soft moss, between the roots of a mammoth tree. It was damp to his bare cheek, but not too cold. It was just right to sleep in... yes... sleep...  
  
Deep underneath the great tree, an unearthly power awakened. It could sense a spirit ready to part with its body, in the act known as death. It could sense that the entity was young, and frightened.   
Although the being itself could not feel emotion, it could feel others and empathise. It logically weighed up its chances. In it's present state, the organic entity was liable to be accepting towards the power, allowing it to make it, it's host, however, it would be possible that the weakened state of the possible host would be fatal to both symbiote and host.  
But, this was it's first chance to awaken in three centuries, ever since it was secreted in the natural well that the tree grew over.  
It took action, decisively and without regret.   
The Witchblade would survive.  
  
Ranma was completely unconscious, and was so, cannot be blamed for not resisting when slim, to slender, whips of shimmering silver and blue rose from the ground around him, shredding the soft bed of moss, and leaning in to enclose around the near-dead Saotome.  
The whips grew more of their odd shiney skin between the encroaching spines. Within five minutes, the young boy was swallowed in a cocoon of silver and blue material.  
  
The young Ranma found himself in a room, a study, perhaps. It had a number of plaques of the wall and the desk was readily equipped with a comfortable chair and a lot of paperwork. He was wearing a whole and clean gi. All of his pain, feelings of cold and wetness were gone, replaced with a cleansed feeling.  
"Where am I?" asked Ranma, finding himself, reclined in another comfortable chair.  
"No need to worry," stated a calm voice, from a woman who suddenly came into being behind the desk, sitting elegantly in the chair. She wore long jeans, and a baggy shirt. She was tall with long reddish-brown hair and very beautiful. She smiled at him kindly.  
"Who are you?" asked Ranma, relaxing a notch, more comfotable facing a potential opponent than an empty room. He had already thought up a number of ways to attack and incapacitate her before she chuckled and stated, equally calmly.  
"Now, now, Ranma. Didn't your parents ever teach you not to hit girls?" she joked lightly.  
"Yeah, my pop." Ranma retorted. "An' he 's a fool! 'S stupid to limit yourself!"  
She grimaced, at his lack of grammer, and social graces. "Well, to move to a more pressing topic. I have no doubt that you would like to know where you are!"  
"Yeah," said Ranma in agreement.  
"Well, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure!" she stated, frowning a little.  
"What?"  
"Well, you see, I am a personality construct, made up of what the Witchblade remembers of our last host, a police detective called Sara Pezzini. She was like you in some respects. Wilful, smart, and quite unique." She sighed slightly. "Sara would have died if she had not agreed to accept the power. Admitted she wasn't entirely aware she did, but..." she shrugged.  
Ranma was now a little curious as to what this meant for him. He was about to ask a question before she forestalled him.  
"Ranma, I think it is pretty obvious that you encountered the Witchblade, but what I would like to know is where?"  
Ranma held his head lightly and groaned out, "In the woods, the woods... somewhere."  
The construct of Sara stood up, walked around the desk and patted Ranma gently on the shoulder. "Don't stress yourself, Ranma." She noticed how he flinched when she touched him; also she looked back and noted his improved grammar when he did not feel angry or threatened.  
He straightened and looked her in the eye. "What does this mean to me?"  
Sara sat on the desk, after shoving a pile of paper to one side. "Well, to understand that, I guess I should tell you the background of the Witchblade." She paused to collect her thoughts. "In another dimension, the Witchblade was created, by whom and what for, not even it knows. For as long as we can remember, the Witchblade has served as a weapon by those who it made its host, a blessed few.   
"The Witchblade is a powerful thing, some believe it to be a thing of magic, some of extra-terrestrial origin, or both, but whatever it's origins, it is beyond normal ideas of what should and should not be! It can grow from a bracelet to a five-storey building in seconds. It can manipulate a form of potent energy. It has the power to produce electrical charge, increase longevity, and even raise the dead! It's true limits are yet to be broached, as I said, it has been used mostly as a weapon and has only been used in that direction, by minds of limited imagination! It evolved the most under Sara's influence!"  
Ranma was curious. "You said that no one, not even the Witchblade, knows where it comes from?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, it could be a demonic monstrous thing, and you don't know!"  
The 'Sara' glared at Ranma. "I will have you know, as a tutorial construct, I am part of the Witchblade. I think I would know if I was a part of a demon!"  
Ranma decided to let it go for now, and made a polite gesture for her to go on.  
Sara leapt back into her tale with nary a pause. "The Witchblade is not the only power in existence, there are others. One of those was the Darkness, wielded by Jackie Escatado, a Mafia hit man. Jackie and Sara were well aware of each other, and came to know each other much better as tie wore on.   
"They were married and were an ideal super-human couple. During day, a wonderful, harmonious couple, with nothing but a bright future, and at night, the Witchblade and the Darkness came out to play, either having different goals and different things they wished to do. For example, despite Jackie being a hit man and Sara, a police woman, they casually ignored what the other did for a living, so great grew their love that Jackie became willing to... well... you know..."  
"What?" asked Ranma, a befuddled expression on his face.  
Sara was beginning to sweat. "Well, um... You know what needs to happy for babies to get born. Well, the Daddy and the Mommy have to love each other a lot and..."  
"Oh," Ranma interrupted her; "You mean sex!"  
Sara was caught between being glad not to explain and shock that such a young boy, barely seven, was aware! She gaped for a moment like a fish, until she restored her composure. "Yes, well... Jackie had some problems regarding... doing that... safely, so they looked out for a way to temporarily store the Darkness and then... well, let's just say that it would give them the freedom to express themselves. Afterwards, they planed to restore the Darkness to Jackie. Or so that was the plan.   
"They asked an old friend, a tomb raider, to locate an ancient vase, reputed to steal and store dark powers, and you can't get much darker than the Darkness! They attempted to use the vase in that friend's house, and as far as I can guess, another artefact interfered and took both the Darkness and Witchblade, spitting them out into this dimension. The Darkness was encapsulated, and the Witchblade was promptly discovered and imprisoned by a magician!"  
Ranma blinked, "Well, he didn't do a very good job, did he!"  
"No, actually he did. You see, he began, like so many others, to be corrupted with the promise of the power the Witchblade held. He was originally benign, but became a monster in his attempt to gain favour in the Witchblades 'eyes'. He used his power to enhance the Witchblade, using dark magic to make it attuned to men instead of women, and increased it's power, intelligence, and gave it the necessary concepts for the Witchblade to start thinking on, what is now called, a cellular level! The magician found himself about to be relieved of the Witchblade, and so told his apprentice to hide it in a place of power!"  
Ranma scratched his head and asked, "Is that place of power the forest?"  
'Sara' smiled, "Yes, and no. It is a well, created when the world was young. Its pure waters had various regenerative properties, and there was an entire village, right where the wood now stands, that used the well. One of the magician's evils was the rite that stole the potency from the water and even poisoned the well; he used that power to change the Witchblade's alignment, to allow it to accept men as well or perhaps instead of women. When the Witchblade was thrown down into it, the mouth was sealed up a by a magically enhanced tree, and ever since, the Witchblade has had to battle it's prison, the poisoned water and the lack of a host. Evidently until you came!"  
"So," asked Ranma, "Where is this... Darkness?"  
Sara shrugged. "You expect me to know everything?"  
"Well, where do we go from here?" asked Ranma.  
"Well, I was created to make the introduction and to set your fears to rest. The Witchblade has had plenty of time to ponder what would happen if it's new host was not all it was looking for. It was not in a position to be picky..."  
"Thanks!" he grumbled  
"... And now, after the introduction, I'm pretty much here to warn you about the imminent download into your brain, and that you will wake up with the Witchblade in your body."  
"How 'in my body'?" asked Ranma, wide-eyed. He imagined having horrific bulges coming from all around his body.  
"Well, the Witchblade has converted itself into Cell-sized pieces, that are interconnected through a organic-alloy mesh, or matrix, that allows the Witchblade to work as normal but with less disadvantages. Physically, you should be the same; the Witchblade won't take up any more space than it has too. Hell, you won't even notice it!"  
"Um, and what is this about a download?" asked Ranma slightly nervously.  
"Well, the Witchblade deals in combinations of thought, using concepts... uh, well, to be honest I don't understand it entirely myself, but, I do know, it is not something that you can just be taught, you have to have it told to you by the Witchblade itself! No construct can teach you those skills; even Sara only developed them because of sub-conscious communication!"  
"So, will this hurt?" asked Ranma, reclining in his comfortable chair.  
Sara thought for a moment. "Not exactly, but with will feel fuzzy, odd, and slightly sick, then you'll wake up feeling fine and actually knowing what great power you've lucked across!"  
"Great, when?" deadpanned Ranma. He just wanted it over and done with. As it was, he already had plotted his course once he awoke, and it would be far away from Genma Saotome!  
"Now, if you want?" she looked at him quizzically. He was far too calm, and the look in his eyes was lightly disturbing. Once she reintegrated with the rest of the Witchblade's 'programming', she would have to look into it.  
"Okay, do it!" he tensed and mentally prepared himself for the disorientation.  
Quite suddenly, everything around him disappeared. 


End file.
